Barclays preps social enterprise hackathons

Barclays is inviting UK tech and design bods to take part in a pair of hackathon weekends where they will work on socially useful finance-related ideas.

The 54 hour 'social enterprise' weekends will be held on 22 February; one in London's Tech City and the other at Radbroke Hall, Barclays' technology centre near Manchester.

Participants will be thrown together into teams to come up with ideas and build products that fit the social enterprise concept, which Barclays defines as "technical solutions that benefit the communities in which we live and work - such as within education, the economy, personal finances, health and wellbeing".

The London event's brief says its focus is on "building tools to help young people manage and take control of their financial situation. The challenge is to build apps that focus on 'personal financial management' and 'education and awareness of banking'."

Participants will be given advice and guidance from experts, including - at Radbroke Hall - Barclays' head of mobile Shaun Terry.

Entrance to the London event costs £10, with meals and refreshments provided. The Radbroke Hall weekend costs £25 and also includes accommodation.

At the end of the weekends, a panel of judges at each venue will pick a winning team which will receive 20 hours of post-event technical support from Barclays staff and get to pick a charity to receive 75% of the registration fees.

A runner up will get 10 hours of help and decide which charity gets the remaining 25% of fees. All teams will have access to at least one follow-on meeting with Barclays tech experts.